Britain limits the importation of workers to highly skilled categories
The number of jobs open to migrants from outside the European Union is to be halved, ministers will announce today. Foreigners are currently able to obtain work permits for around 500,000 posts that bosses say cannot be filled by British or EU workers.
But from April that will fall to 230,000 when non-graduate jobs are taken off the Home Office ‘shortage occupation list’.
Non-EU beauty salon managers, estate agents, florists, pipe fitters, steel erectors and welders will be among those barred. The Home Office has commissioned an expert review of all the remaining categories on the list.
If the Migration Advisory Committee finds there are enough unemployed British workers with the required skills, tens of thousands more posts could be closed. Ministers want to ensure that priority access to Britain’s labour market is granted only where there are real skills shortages.
Immigration minister Damian Green said the Government was determined to cut dole queues and make sure migrants were not the ‘first resort’ for firms with vacancies.
Firms looking to fill jobs which appear on the shortage list do not have to advertise to British workers first, and applicants do not have to meet an earnings test.
Others taken off the list because they are not graduate level include sheep shearers, senior care workers and meat boners.
Mr Green said: ‘These changes to the shortage occupation list will ensure that only skilled workers are coming to the UK through Tier 2 of the points-based system. ‘It will allow firms to bring in people with necessary skills without migrants becoming the first resort to fill a wide range of available jobs.
‘This Government is also determined to get people back to work and provide business with the skills they need from the British workforce – reducing the need for migrants at the same time as we reduce their number.’
Last week, Mr Green attacked Labour for failing to impose controls on Eastern European workers when the EU expanded in 2004. He said the ‘mistake’ would never be repeated and much tougher restrictions would apply in future. More than 1.15million Eastern European workers have signed up to the Home Office’s worker registration scheme.
Mr Green said the job categories listed as skilled under Tier 2 will be cut from 192 to 121. Midwives, chartered surveyors and management accountants stay on the approved list.
Officials estimate around 65 per cent of the 8,400 work permits issued last year to workers on the shortage list would not have qualified under the new rules.
The shake-up is part of efforts to cut net migration – the number that migration adds to the population every year – to the tens of thousands by 2015. Last year it hit 226,000.
The student visa system will also be modified so only the ‘brightest and the best’ can come to Britain. Home Office figures suggest more than a quarter of those at private colleges flout immigration rules.
Professor David Metcalf, of the Migration Advisory Committee, said: ‘Placing limits on migration requires we are far more selective and ensure only highly skilled migrant workers can come to work in the UK.’
SOURCE
Recent posts at CIS below
See here for the blog. The CIS main page is here.
1. A Day in the Life of an Arizona Rancher: Border Fences, Illegal Aliens, and One Man’s Watchtower (Video)
2. Like Nike, States Just Do It! (Blog)
3. One of the World's Smallest Navies Thwarts Illegal Entries to the U.S. (Blog)
4. The State of E-Verify (Blog)
5. In Two Weeks, 295 Apprehensions in the Ajo SBInet Sector (Blog)
6. Columnist Laments Mexico's Double Standard (Blog)
7. A Slip? Deliberate? USCIS Positions English Document in Second Place (Blog)
8. Why Do Black Congressmen Vote Against Limiting Immigration? (Blog)
9. And the Oscar for Uninformed Immigration Commentary Goes to ... the Dairy Farmer from Utah (Blog)
10. Secure Border Initiative Proves Itself Again (Blog)
11. State OKs Migration of Same-Sex Partners, But for Diplomats Only (Blog)
12. Utah Legislative Leaders & Special Interests Force Through Amnesty/Guestworker Program (Blog)
13. The Very Model of a Modern Illegal Alien? (Blog)
Background
Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.
Why is "La Raza" the one Spanish term that is NEVER translated in the American mass media? Because translating it would make it a lot less respectable. It means "THE RACE" -- The mixed Hispanic "race" of Mexico. Racism is fine South of the Rio Grande only, apparently.
The "line" of this blog is that immigration should be SELECTIVE. That means that:
1). A national government should be in control of it. The U.S. and U.K. governments are not but the Australian government has shown that the government of a prosperous Western country can be. Up until its loss of office in 2007, the conservative Howard government had all but eliminated illegal immigration. The present Leftist government has however restarted the flow of illegals by repealing many of the Howard government regulations.
2). Selectivity should be based on "the content of a man's character, not on the color of his skin", as MLK said. To expand that a little: Immigrants should only be accepted if they as individuals seem likely to make a positive net contribution to the country. Many "refugees" would fail that test: Muslims and Africans particularly. Educational level should usually be a pretty fair proxy for the individual's likely value to the receiving country. There will, of course, be exceptions but it is nonetheless unlikely that a person who has not successfully completed High School will make a net positive contribution to a modern Western society.
3). Immigrants should be neither barred NOR ACCEPTED solely because they are of some particular ethnic origin. Blacks are vastly more likely to be criminal than are whites or Chinese, for instance, but some whites and some Chinese are criminal. It is the criminality that should matter, not the race.
4). The above ideas are not particularly blue-sky. They roughly describe the policies of the country where I live -- Australia. I am critical of Australian policy only insofar as the "refugee" category for admission is concerned. All governments have tended to admit as refugees many undesirables. It seems to me that more should be required of them before refugees are admitted -- for instance a higher level of education or a business background.
5). Perhaps the most amusing assertion in the immigration debate is that high-income countries like the USA and Britain NEED illegal immigrants to do low-paid menial work. "Who will pick our crops?" (etc.) is the cry. How odd it is then that Australians get all the normal services of a modern economy WITHOUT illegal immigrants! Yes: Before the pandemic, you usually COULD buy a lettuce in Australia for a dollar or thereabouts. And Australia IS a major exporter of primary products.
6). I am a libertarian conservative so I reject the "open door" policy favoured by many libertarians and many Leftists. Both those groups tend to have a love of simplistic generalizations that fail to deal with the complexity of the real world. It seems to me that if a person has the right to say whom he/she will have living with him/her in his/her own house, so a nation has the right to admit to living among them only those individuals whom they choose.
I can be reached on jonjayray@hotmail.com -- or leave a comment on any post. Abusive comments will be deleted.
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